Chapter 2

Needless to say, Isa was not happy that morning.

Well, he was never happy that early in the morning, but this one was worse than usual.

"So let me get this straight. You had a bad dream and just had to wake me up to tell me about it," he said dryly as his best friend Lea paced in front of him.

Lea paused and scratched the back of his head. "Yes- No- I don't know. It just felt so real."

"You dreamed you were ten years older, an assassin for an evil cult, didn't have a heart but did have 'Awesome fire powers', and you were basically a father-figure to an amnesic kid and a puppet who both fought embodiments of darkness using giant keys, and all that sounds real to you?" Isa asked in disbelief.

Lea glared at him. "Hey! Don't call her a puppet."

Isa closed his eyes and sighed. "That's what you took away from it?"

Lea thought it over a minute, then added, "Well, I was more of a big brother than a father to them, but otherwise, that's pretty much right."

Isa couldn't hold back a chuckle at that. "Good for them. I'd hate to see how messed up they'd be with you for a father."

"Hey!" Lea squawked indignantly. His face then fell. "I just- I can't get this out of my head, ya know."

"Sounds like you got it memorized," said Isa, not taking it too seriously.

Lea shot him a dirty look.

Holding up his hands in surrender, Isa switched tracks. "It's not as if you can test to see if it was real."

Lea's expression lit up. "Hey! What if I can! At the end of the dream, it was hard to tell because I'm pretty sure I was dying or something, but I know the three of us ended up here in Radiant Garden, and I think I remember where. All we need to do is go and find them!"

"Didn't you also say Radiant Garden was destroyed before that, and it shouldn't have been possible you were there," said Isa skeptically. "That inconsistency really lends itself more to it being a dream, you know."

"Maybe, maybe not," said Lea, already heading for the door. "Can't hurt to go and look."

Isa stared after him as he went, then sent one last longing glance at his bed before sighing and following after him. "You owe me for this," he said as they headed out the door.

"You got it," said Lea as he led the way. "Ice cream's on me."

For the umpteenth time that day (and it wasn't even dawn yet), Isa stopped to stare at his friend. "Ice cream? For breakfast?"

Luckily, the weird duck guy who sold the ice cream apparently didn't believe in closing hours ("Why close ma' shop when more customers can come an' pay anytime?" he'd explained when Isa asked), and happily sold Lea four bars of sea salt ice cream.

"You're really going all out with this," Isa remarked as he carried the ice cream bag and followed Lea, who was trying to find the alleyway his dream-self had died in (now wasn't that morbid).

"Look at it this way, Isa," said Lea as they walked. "If I'm right, then there're two kids out there who think I'm dead and we get to cheer them up. If I'm wrong, we each get two ice creams. Win, win."

"Well, can't say no to extra ice cream," Isa had to agree.

Lea pointedly ignored the implication they wouldn't find the dream kids.

Finally, they reached the courtyard where Lea was pretty sure they'd first landed at the end of the dream. "Okay, it was around here somewhere."

Isa hummed in acknowledgment, looking like he was ready to be proven right and move on.

Retracing the hazy memory of his steps, Lea followed the last remnants of the dream until he was standing outside the alley where it happened and froze.

Isa stopped next to him and his amusement dimmed at the sight of his face. "You okay?"

Lea took a deep breath. "Yeah, just need… just need to psych myself up for this. I mean, even if it was a dream, I still, like, died here. That's… that's pretty freaky."

"We don't have to do this," Isa said in concern.

Lea shook his head. "Yes, I do," he said firmly and walked into the alley.

The first thing he noticed was that the alley was a mess. Dented trash cans and ripped apart bags were scattered around like some kind of fight had gone down.

It didn't look like this in his dream. Maybe Isa was right, maybe it was just-

Catching sight of a dark lump at the end of the alleyway cut that thought off in an instant. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be two dark lumps. Or rather, two hooded figures in long black coats huddled together.

Could it be…

Knowing he'd look really stupid if this just turned out to be some homeless people, Lea cleared his throat and asked, "Roxas? Xion?"

The two figures' heads snapped up and both looked at him, their faces impossible to see under the shadows of their hoods.

For a moment, no one moved as they all just stood there staring at each other.

Feeling uncomfortable, Lea opened his mouth to say something, but a pair of delighted cries rang out before he could.

"AXEL!"

As one, the two figures surged to their feet and tackled Lea in one of the tightest hugs he'd ever been in.

Lea, needing to be sure, reached up to tug off their hoods and took in the familair-but-shouldn't-be short black hair of Xion, and Roxas' blond spikes before hugging them back.

Neither of them even seemed to notice as they were bombarding him with questions.

"Axel, how are you here?"

"Where'd you go?"

"Are you alright?"

"We thought you died!"

"Did you shrink?"

"Whoa, whoa, one at a time," said Lea, feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the undeniable proof that his dream was definitely not a dream and the sheer amount of questions being asked.

Roxas reluctantly pulled back, but Xion hugged him tighter for a moment before stepping back too.

Lea tried to think of some explanation (even though he was still pretty lost himself), when the sound of a cough reminded him there was one more person in the alley with them.

Isa, who looked just as boggled as Lea was feeling that these two were, in fact, real, and gave them an awkward wave. "Uh, hi," he said.

Roxas scowled at the sight of him and moved to stand in front of Xion, who wilted when she saw him there. "Saïx?" she asked in a small voice.

Too late Lea remembered that Isa's cult future-self had been a real jerk to her.

"Not exactly," said Lea, stepping over to put his hand on Isa's shoulder. "This is my best friend Isa, and my name is Lea." He then flashed them his signature smirk and added, "Got it memorized?"

Xion frowned in confusion, but Roxas was still looking ready to fight Isa if he made one wrong move.

"Look," said Lea, hoping to smooth things over. "I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I woke up this morning with, like, ten years of memories stuffed in my head, a lot of them with me being this Axel guy, and I think… I think we all have a lot to talk about."

"Does it have to be with him?" asked Roxas reluctantly.

Sensing their hostility, Isa lifted up the bag he was holding as a peace offering. "I brought ice cream," he said.

The two keybearers exchanged a glance hearing that.

"Well..." said Xion. "Okay."

One long explanation later with all of them up to speed (hopefully), the four of them found themselves sitting on a high garden wall watching the sunrise as they ate their ice cream breakfast.

"I like sunsets better," Roxas remarked off-hand as they watched the sky grow lighter.

"So what do we do now?" asked Xion as she licked her ice cream. "Do we still need to go to Sora?"

Roxas scowled at the idea, and Isa still looked like he didn't fully understand that part of the future mess.

Lea, meanwhile, snorted. "Why would you?" he asked. "In this time, Sora's got all his memories. He doesn't need you or his Nobody to be whole, he already is. Heck, he's probably just a little brat that doesn't even have a keyblade right now."

Xion looked relieved to hear that. "That's good," she said. "I was okay with disappearing if it meant saving Roxas, but… I didn't want you to forget me."

"Nothing wrong with wanting to be remembered," said Isa. "This guy's determined to be remembered by everyone he ever meets," he added with a teasing elbow jab into Lea's side.

"What's wrong with that?" asked Lea indignantly.

Roxas had a funny look on his face. "I just realized," he said. "If this is the past and the Organization hasn't started yet, then I'm the first Nobody around. Would that make me the Superior when it gets started?"

Xion giggled at the thought, but Lea and Isa exchanged an uncomfortable look.

"No offense," said Isa. "But after hearing about what your future holds, I'd really rather this Organization you're talking about never gets started."

"Same here," said Lea wryly. "I like having a heart. I'd rather not go and lose it like Axel did."

"Well, maybe that's something we can do," said Xion thoughtfully between bites of ice cream. "We can stop Organization XIII from ever happening."

The boys all looked at her in surprise, before their expressions turned contemplative.

"Could we even do that?" asked Roxas.

"Ya know, I bet we could," said Lea, a grin growing on his face. "I mean, all the original Organization members got their start right there." He pointed his half-eaten ice cream over at the castle. "If we want to stop the Organization from happening, we'd just have to stop the experiments they were doing that lost them their hearts. Or maybe just stop all of them, period."

Isa looked amused. "What? You want to start a rebellion against Ansem the Wise?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, why not?" asked Lea. "That's the stuff that led to the Heartless, leading to us becoming Nobodies, leading to that mess Roxas and Xion just left behind. Maybe it's better if it all just stops here."

The humor fell of Isa's face, and he looked thoughtful over at the castle. "Hmm, it could be a good way to get her out of there too. Especially now that we know that becoming apprentices won't work."

"Her?" asked Xion, looking confused.

"There's a girl trapped in the castle," said Isa. "We met her once after sneaking in. They're treating her like a lab rat in there."

"We've been trying to break back in to break her out ever since," added Lea. "And if my memories from Axel are right, we were still trying to find and save her even in the Organization, but we never did."

"That's disappointing to hear," said Isa.

"So we're doing this?" asked Roxas, looking at the castle as if he was ready to storm it that instant and tear it down with his bare hands (looks like he still wasn't satisfied with just trashing the alley after Axel faded away). "Because I'm in if you are."

Xion nodded. "Me too. Seeing what they made me to do, I don't want them to hurt anyone else like that."

"Being the jerk minion of some heart-obsessed creep doesn't sound very appealing to me either," said Isa.

Lea finished off his ice cream and saw a 'Winner' stamped on the stick. Grinning and pointing it at the castle, he said, "Looks like we've got ourselves a rebellion."

A/N As I said last chapter, keep in mind we're throwing out most of the established time travel rules of Kingdom Hearts. That method does still exist, but it turns out there's more than one way. Well, I guess technically Axel kinda did the original way, only more permanently. It was less Axel died, and more that he recombined with Lea, leaving Lea with all Axel's memories, a pretty good idea of some coming events that would end really badly for him and Isa if he lets them, and a fondness for Roxas and Xion, who don't really see him any differently. To them, he's just Axel but shorter. To Isa, his best friend is suddenly slightly more mature, somewhat traumatized, and seems very invested in protecting him and these two new strangers he's still not so sure about, but seem to be easily bribable with ice cream. Clearly they are a competent band of heroes who will save the day.

Next Time: Lea, Isa, Roxas, and Xion put their rebellion into action. It's surprisingly fun.